Glee Season 6: How Many Episodes Will Be in the Show’s Final Season?

Seasons 1-4 of Glee each had the standard 22 episode order, but with the shocking and upsetting death of star Cory Monteith (Finn) last summer, the cast took an extended hiatus to process the tremendous loss. They’d already filmed the first three episodes of Season 5, and that break made it impossible for them to complete a full 22-episode order. Instead, Season 5 will be cut short with only 20 installments.

But Season 6, premiering this fall, is slated to be the series’ last and Ryan Murphy and his creative team seem keen on finding homes for the two lost episodes — even if they don’t have a specific plan in play just yet.

In an interview TVLine, and a few other select publications, Ryan explained why Season 5 needed to be shortened and shared his hopes for Season 6’s episode count. “This year we did 20 episodes, and the reason we did 20 was because we had a three-week delay because of Cory’s passing. There was no way to physically produce those episodes and get them on the air in the month of May. That’s why the order was sort of truncated,” he explained. “So now, what we’re left with is basically 24 episodes. And I can’t speak for other people, but for me, doing a straight run-through of 24 episodes just doesn’t seem to be viable. It doesn’t feel right, so we’re looking at how do we take those 24 ± do we divide them? The main thrust of them will be a final farewell to all of our characters that we’ve known since Season 1.”

Like we said, it doesn’t sound like Ryan and his crew have a concrete answer just yet, but we’re pleased to hear that it doesn’t seem like he’s just going to forget about those two hours either. Maybe some episodes of Season 6 can be slightly longer to make up for lost time, or maybe they can squeeze one more ep in this year and add the last remaining one onto next year’s run?

Honestly, it’s probably better to leave the planning up to Ryan and the head honchos over at FOX, we just hope we can get all the Glee we desire before it goes off the air for good next year! Tell us your thoughts and feelings below!